Joe's Anniversary
by Animaltalker
Summary: A sequel to All I have To Do Is Dream, Joe Fontana returns to Chicago to visit his fianceé's grave on what would have been their 20th wedding anniversary.


"Whoa, wait this can't be right!" Fontana said, as he read his two-week duty assignment. He nearly did a pirouette in his Gucci loafers as he headed into the Lieutenant's office.

"Excuse me lieutenant," Fontana said, not having knocked or looked up from the piece of paper before entering her office.

"I'd say!" Anita Van Buren said a bit more than miffed; as the detective had caught her in the midst of readjusting her blouse into her slacks, and she hadn't gotten the zipper all the way back up when he'd barged in. 'Teach me to go to the ladies room for this sort of thing next time, damn synthetic fabrics always riding up,' she thought.

"Now just what's your problem, that you've totally forgotten your manners?" she asked.

'Oh great,' Fontana thought to himself. 'You've gone and pissed her off. Now she won't fix it so you can get the time off for the Anniversary, you stupid idiot, like a bull in a china shop Teresa always said.'

"Fontana?" Van Buren prompted him when he got lost in his thoughts.

"Oh yeah, uh it's the schedule. I put in for a few days around the 7th. You see I got to be back in Chicago on the 7th. I've made all the arrangements, hired a plane, got the hotel reservations, all that. So I have to have those days off and the schedule has me working. So I was wondering, would it be OK if I swapped it with somebody? I mean I don't want to go behind your back or anything, but it's just real important that I be there, on the 7th." Joe couldn't believe how nervous he felt talking to the lieutenant about this. He was like a guilty perp who knew they had him dead to rights.

"The 7th of June?" she asked as though she hadn't a clue what he was talking about, and in truth she didn't. As far as she could remember of his service record that wasn't a special date, at least it wasn't his birthday.

"Yeah the 7th of June." He answered nervously.

"What's so special about the 7th? Is there some sort of family celebration going on?" she asked.

"No, no there's no family celebration," suddenly Joe realized why he'd felt so nervous in her presence, she could get him to talk. Usually he could hold his secrets in, but it would be different with Van Buren. Women were sensitive to these sorts of things and she more than most women. She was trained to pick up on the little subtle clues people gave off.

"What is it, Joe?" she'd changed the timbre of her voice and used his first name. He knew he needed to throw up all his defenses quickly or she'd have it all out of him, and he wasn't sure he could stand the pain of talking about it so close to the anniversary, especially not this anniversary.

"Do you have to know? Can't a man have some secrets? I swear to you, it's nothing illegal, it doesn't hurt how I do my job. I just need some time alone in Chicago." He begged.

Anita considered the man in front of her for a long moment, and then she sighed.

"All right, you find someone who wants to swap with you and I'll OK it," Anita agreed.

"Thanks Lieutenant," Joe said and flashed a charming smile at her.

"But Joe, if you ever do decide to reveal a few of those secrets of yours, how about you give me first dibs?" she asked.

"If I ever do," he said and shook his head slightly.



A cemetery in Chicago

The breeze ruffled Joe's hair and his tuxedo pants and made it tricky to pour the champagne into the flute.

"It's a blustery day for June honey, but you know how Chicago is," he talked to her tombstone and drank some of the champagne. He sat down on the grass next to her grave.

"Sometimes I think about how things would have been if, well you know, if things had gone the way we'd planned. I wonder about the baby, was it a girl or a boy? Would we have settled for just one? Would I have been any good at being a father? Man, that baby would be grown up now, probably coming back from his or her first year at college just about now, driving the old man nuts."

"I miss you, Teresa. I keep expecting that to go away, but it never has. Moving to New York made it a little better, not quite as many memories to haunt me there. Last night was bad Teresa, sleeping in our bed again." He drank the rest of the champagne in the glass and poured some more and drank it.

"Why can't I move on, Teresa? Mike has practically begged me to, but I can't. It's like when you died, you took my heart with you, and the only reason I don't just eat my gun, is then I won't have anyway to reach you after death, because I know you're in heaven."

"My new partner got shot and almost died, and all I could think was, why couldn't it have been me, then maybe I'd be with you," finally the drinking and the emotion caught up with him and he collapsed onto the grave.

"I knew he'd be here," Mike Sullivan said to Tony Fontana.

"Of course, where else would my brother be on what would have been his 20th wedding anniversary, but at his fiancée's grave," he answered.

"Come on, let's get him out of here before I get the heebie jeebies."


End file.
